Tips for getting to know the market

When it comes to marketing your business you are going to want to get to know the market before you decide if you should open up your business. By getting to know the market you will know if there is a large enough customer base to support your business, you will get to know your competitors, and you will find out if your business has the chance to be successful. Good business people get to know the market before they open up their business because of the potential wealth of information that they can obtain for getting to know the market.

Here are some tips for getting to know the market.

Tip one:
The first thing that you can do to get to know the market is to use informal focus groups. But you want to make sure that you get away from your group of friends and family members because they might be biased and will worry about hurting your feelings rather than telling you the truth about your product or service. You can always go to a local coffee shop or a mall and stop random people to see if they are interested in your product or service. If you are already in business and are thinking of expanding you can also talk with your existing customers to see what they think of your new line of thought.

Tip two:
Another way to get to know the market is to contact your local universities. They can offer you help in testing your local market by letting graduate students do a market feasibility study on your product or service for credit. Or you can talk to the professors in the Business School to see what kind of information that they have available about your local market. University libraries are also a great source for getting to know the market.

Tip three:
Another great source for getting to know the market is other local small business owners; nobody can give small business owners advice like other small business owners. Business groups are another great way to help you gather business information on your local market. Your local chamber of commerce is a great resource for small business owners, not only can they offer you business advice but they can also give you some information on the market conditions.

Tip four:
An important part to getting to know the market consists of gathering information about your customers. Information such as demographic and economic data can be used to find out if the local market you are considering is the right age range and income range that you are looking to target. You can also find out about other small businesses that offer the same or similar service or products that you are going to offer. A great place to find this information is online at the U.S. Census Bureau's website.

Tip five:
Another important piece of information for getting to know the market is knowing about your competitors. You want to know what your competitors are doing, what their marketing plan is, how they approach customers, etc. Basically you want to know everything you can about your competitors. The best way to gather information about your competitors is to become a customer of their business. This will give an inside view of what they are doing from a customer's stand point and will give you ideas about how you can improve your business to give your customers things that your competitors are not giving, basically how you can do business better than them.

Just remember that one of the keys to running a successful business is getting to know the market before you open your doors to customers.